


Escape

by RoseAngel



Series: The Red Thread [18]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Abduction, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Escape, First Meetings, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-13 00:58:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11173683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseAngel/pseuds/RoseAngel
Summary: An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break. - Ancient Chinese beliefA series of alternate ways that John and Sherlock could have met. PROMPT FICPrompt #18: Sherlock and John first meeting while captured by someone then having to escape together.





	Escape

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to the beautiful Becca (LlamaWithAPen) for beta-ing this for me. 
> 
> Today's prompt comes from FanFiction.Net User Cyrania de Bergerac.

Pain.

It's the first thing that John becomes aware of. His entire body is aching. His muscles feel stiff, sore, and impossible to move. His limbs feel heavy. His head is throbbing, and his stomach is churning. Everything hurts.

Barely conscious, he tries to roll over, to find a comfortable position. His mattress is cheap, and it always feels hard against his back, but it has never been this uncomfortable. He shifts, and his shoulder twists underneath him. There is no give beneath his weight. He is not on his mattress. Even his mattress isn't as hard as a rock. He has to be on the ground.

He tries to force his eyes open, but it only makes the throbbing in his head worse. He groans. The sound is hoarse; his throat feels dry.

It takes several feeble attempts before he can make his eyes stay open. Even when he manages, he has to blink several times to focus. It's dark. It's not pitch black – there is a dull light that allows his eyes to focus after some time, but it's not bright enough to fully illuminate the room. He can only see colourless shadows. He turns his head to find the source of light, and finds it coming from a small window at the top of the wall. The window is not covered by glass, only bars.

He tries to roll over, even though his entire body seems to scream in protest. He needs to sit up and work out where he is. He tries to use his hands to support himself, and he finds them trapped. There is a pressure against his wrist, securing his hands together, keeping them behind his back.

His mind throws up images of the stories he has heard. Prisoners of war. Torture. He was lucky; he was a doctor first, a soldier second, and was never put into situations where becoming a prisoner of war was a real risk. He knows people who weren't so lucky. He knows the stories of the people who have died there. Worse still are the stories of those who came out alive.

He doesn't remember what happened. He doesn't know how he got here, doesn't know where _here_ is or where he was before. Even though his mind is slow, his heart is racing. He can't breathe. He's going to die here. He's going to die.

There is a sound beside him. His instincts are fast, and his head snaps in the direction of the noise. It only worsens the pain.

"You're awake," says an unfamiliar voice, and he can see a shadow. He blinks several times to get his eyes to focus. The shadow is moving closer in awkward, shuffling movements. He tries to move away. His body is stiff, but he manages to shift along the ground. Something sharp scratches his back through the fabric of his jumper. Jumper. He's wearing a jumper. Why would he be wearing a jumper?

The figure stops moving. It – he – is a little bit closer now. John cannot see him clearly, but he can make out some of the man's features in the dull light. Dark curls, long limbs. The figure is on his knees, but even then, he looks tall. He is dressed in a large coat. It looks out of place. Why isn't he in uniform?

Blink. Focus. Think.

He's not in Afghanistan. He was shot and sent home because of a pain in his leg, stopping him from walking. He cannot be a prisoner of war if he is not at war.

The comfort that this thought offers is limited. He might not be a prisoner of war, but he is a prisoner. He is somewhere dark, and his hands are tied. He doesn't know what happened. He doesn't know how he got here.

He tries to move again, but it only causes more pain, and he groans.

Think.

He was on his way home from work. He had taken the Tube. He had wanted to take a cab, but he was trying to save money. He could not afford to take the cab every day. The Tube was cheaper, and it was only a little more inconvenient. It only meant a little bit of walking. His therapist had recommended walking. She said it would be good for his leg.

He had taken the Tube. He had gotten off the Tube, and then – what?

He doesn't remember. He had gotten off the Tube, and now he is here.

Wherever here is.

Again, John tries to move, to get himself to sit up. He doesn't want to lie here on the ground, especially not when there is a stranger here with him. This position makes him feel vulnerable. Any position will make him feel vulnerable, with his hands tied behind his back, but sitting up would still be better than lying on the ground. He shifts, and he manages to move his legs. His ankles aren't tied. That's good. At least he can kick.

With some difficulty, John manages to get himself upright. He rolls onto his side, curls his legs up underneath him, and then he sits up on his knees. His leg aches. He tries to ignore it.

His eyes focus on the stranger, who has made no attempt to come any closer since John tried to move away. Maybe he isn't a threat. Maybe he doesn't want to harm John. Now that John's eyes are a little more used to the darkness, he can see that the man's hands are behind his back. Maybe his hands are tied too. Like John, the man is a prisoner.

"Are you all right?" the man asks, once John is sitting up.

John's response is to scoff, because no, of course he's not all right. He's in pain, and he's tied up God-knows-where. Nothing about this is the faintest bit all right.

He looks around, blinking hard in an attempt to focus. The room that they are in does not appear to be very big, though it's difficult to gauge distance in the dark. It looks empty, aside from a staircase, leading upwards. It means they're downstairs. John turns his head to look at the small window, and now that he's sitting up, he can see that the window appears to be at ground level – John can see dirt and grass there. That, coupled with the staircase, tells John that they are underground. Maybe they're in a basement.

"Where are we?" John asks. His voice doesn't sound like his own.

"By my estimation, we're about half an hour outside of London," the man replies, "though I can't say for certain in which direction we were travelling."

John squeezes his eyes shut tight, trying to will away the pain in his head. "Christ. Why are we here?"

"We were abducted."

That's not exactly what John was asking. "Why? What do they want?"

"They want me, obviously," the man says dismissively. "You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You would have been perfectly all right if you had not been stupid enough to try to play hero."

John opens his eyes again. "What?"

"You don't remember," the man says. It doesn't sound like a question. "No, of course you don't, you have only just woken up, and you undoubtedly have a lower tolerance than me. You'll remember shortly. They knocked you out, but the drug shouldn't have caused any permanent amnesia." He pauses for a beat, and then asks, "What do you remember?"

John shakes his head. "Not a lot. I remember getting off the Tube. That's it."

"That's it?" the man asks. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You walked past an alleyway, do you recall?"

"Alleyway," John repeats. There are a few alleyways that he passes on the way from the Tube station to his bedsit. One of them in particular sticks out in his mind. He remembers passing that particular alleyway. Something had happened. What had happened?

Focus. Think.

He was walking home, and he had passed the alleyway.

No, that's not right, he didn't pass the alleyway. He had started to walk past it, but something had caught his attention. Something made him stop.

He focusses on the man's face in the dark. There is a cut on his head, under his hairline. Blood streaks down his face. In the darkness, it looks black.

It clicks into place, and the memory filters in. It's fuzzy, but it's there. He had been on his way home, and he had passed the alleyway. He had seen this man, and two, maybe three other men with him. The man was being attacked, being hurt. John had rushed in to help.

John can't remember very much after that, but judging by the fact that they're both here, he gets the feeling he didn't help very much.

"You were attacked," John says, seeking confirmation that his memory is accurate.

The man nods his head. "Yes. And then you, for whatever insane reason, thought it was wise to come and help." He pauses, and then adds, "That's not to say that I don't appreciate the act of heroism, but now they have two hostages instead of one. Makes our impending escape a little more difficult.

"Escape?"

The man gives him a look that is quite clearly unimpressed even in the darkness. "Would you rather stay here?"

"That's not what I meant," John says. "How are we escaping?"

The man is silent for a beat, before he says, "I'm working on it."

John resists the temptation to sigh.

He looks around, seeking out something, anything that could help with their daring escape, but the room is empty. Whoever has trapped them here hasn't given them anything to work with. John doesn't even know what sort of thing he would want to find in a room like this. Something heavy, to knock the door down? A key? A gun?

He turns to face the other man again. "Why were you attacked?" he asks. "What did those men want with you?"

"They're part of a criminal network that I've been investigating," the man replies. "It appears my work did not go unnoticed."

"You're a detective?" John asks. The thought comes with something hopeful: maybe a detective, a professional, will have a partner. Maybe someone is out looking for them.

"Consulting detective," the man corrects.

"Oh," John says, which roughly translates to, 'I have no idea what a consulting detective is or how it differs from your standard, run-of-the-mill detective, but we're being held prisoner in an unknown location and I think we have other priorities right now'.

"We need to get out of these restraints," the man says after a slight pause, interrupting John's thoughts. "Your ankles aren't bound, are they? Just your wrists?" When John nods his head, the man continues, "Good. Excellent. That makes our job a little bit easier. I assume it's a zip tie and not a rope?"

John strains against the binding, twisting his hands so he can feel it against his skin. He had thought that it must have been a rope before, but now that he's paying attention to it, he notices that it feels more like plastic. "I think so, yeah," he says.

"Good. Good, that means they didn't replace it. Perfect, it's easy to get out of."

"How?"

The man lets out a sigh. "You don't know how?"

"Why would I know how to get out of zip ties?"

"It's standard self-defence knowledge, anyone should know how to – never mind. I'll talk you through it. Can you move? It's easier if your arms are in front of you."

John twists, trying to work out if he can slide his arms beneath his legs and bring them in front of his body, but a moment of squirming tells them that that requires a bit more contortion than his body is capable of. He shakes his head. "I can't."

"Figured as much," the man says with another sigh. "Fine. This works too, it will just be more difficult for you. What you need to do is stretch your arms up behind your back, as high as you can, and then bring them down hard. You should be aiming for your forearms to hit your hipbones. If the ties are tight enough, the pressure should cause them to break."

"Sounds easy enough," John say, while thinking, _Sounds easier said than done_.

He shifts so he is sitting on his knees, gives himself a moment while the room stops spinning, and then he gets to his feet. He's unsteady to start with, but he doesn't fall over. He can do this.

He leans his body forward a little, stretches his arms up as high as he can, and then he brings them down against his back. It doesn't work the first time, so he tries it again, harder. He can feel bruises blossoming over his skin, but it's not enough to break the zip ties.

"They're not tight enough," the man says after another few attempts. "Here, I'll tighten them."

John hesitates, and the man sighs.

"I'm not tightening them to make it harder for you, don't be paranoid."

"I'm locked up God-knows-where in bloody zip ties. I think I'm allowed to be paranoid."

"I cannot get out of my own bindings without assistance," the man says. "So it's in my best interest to get you out of yours, not to make it more difficult for you."

"Why can't you get out of yours?"

In response, the man shuffles on his knees, turning in the darkness so that John can see behind his back. The first thing John notices is that the man's hands are not tied with a zip tie, like John's, but instead with rope. However, it's not just his wrists. His ankles are bound as well, which explains why the man was moving on his knees, and there is a third rope that links his wrists and ankles together, limiting his range of movement.

"Why..." John starts, but the man answers his question before he finishes it.

"I was conscious before we reached our destination. I'd already freed myself from the zip ties by the time they opened the doors to the van. They thought it necessary to restrain me in such a way that I would not be able to get free again. So, as you can see, I need another set of hands to untie me, and you can't do much while you're in zip ties. Do you still doubt me?"

John lets out a breath. "No. No, I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have doubted you in the first place, I just..."

"You have trust issues and you're currently under threat. It's hardly an unusual mental response. Now, zip ties. Come here and crouch down in front of me."

This time, John does as he is asked without further hesitation. He takes a couple of steps closer to the man, and then turns around, crouching down so that his wrists are level with the man's mouth. He feels the man clasp the end of the zip tie between his teeth, and then the man mutters, "Pull" as best he can with his mouth shut. John strains his hands against the zip tie, and that, coupled with the man pulling with his teeth, causes it to tighten around his wrists. The plastic cuts into his skin. John hopes he can get out of this quickly, before it cuts off his circulation and he loses feeling in his fingers.

The man lets go of the zip tie, and says, "Try it again. Hard, against your hipbones."

John straightens, and tries again. When it doesn't work, he feels panic pool into his stomach, and he worries he might never get out.

"Hard," the man repeats, with emphasis. "You're trying to break them; you won't have any success if you take it easy."

"I'm trying," John says, wriggling his wrists. This has to work. They have got to get out of here.

He lets out a breath, holds his wrists out behind him, and then he brings them down hard. His forearms strike his hips, and it hurts, but it doesn't matter. At the same time, he hears a snap, and the pressure on his wrists is suddenly released. The zip tie falls to the ground in two pieces, and John twists his wrists a couple of times, overwhelmed with relief as he finds himself capable of movement once more.

"Thank God," he mutters under his breath.

"Good," the man says. "Now, come untie me. Quick, before they come back."

John carefully steps past the man and lowers himself to his knees behind him. It's difficult to see the rope in the darkness. John can make out where the wrists are and where the rope is tied, but he can't make out any details of the knot itself. His hands slide over it in search of a loose part of rope, so that he can work his fingers into it. "The men who abducted us," he says. "How many of them are there?"

"Three, at my count," the man replies. "At minimum. There were two who attacked me, and the driver. If we're being held at their base of operations, there might be more."

"There might be less," John says hopefully. "Maybe the driver wouldn't have stayed."

The man scoffs. "Wishful thinking. They know who I am, they know how I work. They would know better than to leave us here with minimal security. They would know that one man would not be enough to keep me here."

"But three men is enough, apparently," John says. "They were still able to overpower you after you'd gotten out of your zip ties."

The man clears his throat. "Yes, well. I may have underestimated their collective strength and overestimated my tolerance to sedatives. It won't happen again."

John feels the rope give a little under his touch. He manages to hook a finger underneath one of the loops, and as he pulls, he feels it loosen. "You said they know who you are," he says. "Who are you?"

"Sherlock Holmes," the man replies. "The world's only consulting detective."

The job title still means as little to John as it did the first time the man said it.

"Right," he says. The rope loosens a little more, and the man – Sherlock – strains against it, stretching it around his wrists so that John can slide the rope off his hands. The moment he is free, Sherlock reaches behind him for the rope that is tied around his ankles, but his body won't twist enough to let him reach it. "Let me," John says, batting his hands away and reaching for the knot himself. As he works, he asks, "What are we dealing with here? What is this criminal organisation?"

"They're a group of drug smugglers," Sherlock explains.

"Drug smugglers who have branched out into abduction?"

"In a manner of speaking. They are part of a larger organisation – more accurately, a web that I've been investigating over the past year. They have contact, through various other people, with a man whom I have come to recognise as perhaps the most dangerous criminal mastermind that the world has ever seen. He is a much bigger threat than the smugglers themselves. I was close to taking this organisation down, and he realised. He was able to warn them about me."

"Who is he? The criminal mastermind?"

"His name is Moriarty. I have not had any personal contact with him. He sits above it all, like a conductor orchestrating various crimes all over the world without ever getting his hands dirty. Anyone who has contact with him instantly becomes more dangerous. He has resources, ways of getting people out of trouble. He can have people killed, bodies disposed of, crime scenes wiped so clean that you would never know that a crime had occurred. If Moriarty wants you dead, you can be sure that no one will ever find your body, and if they do, nothing will link you back to him."

The nausea worsens in the pit of John's stomach, and he feels the blood rush out of his face. He focusses on the rope beneath his hands, trying – and failing – to ignore the sick sensation. "But they haven't killed us," he says. "The smugglers."

"No," Sherlock says. "Which might be worse."

"How is that _worse_ than being killed?"

"It means they want something from me. I don't know what, but they have some sort of incentive to keep me alive. Maybe Moriarty has a price on my head that only applies if I'm alive. Maybe they believe I have information that they need. Whatever it is, there is a reason we're currently here instead of in a morgue." He pauses for a beat, and adds, "And if I have something they want, they might be willing to resort to means such as torture to get it from me."

"Then why are they keeping me alive?" John asks.

Sherlock doesn't reply.

John swallows thickly past the lump in his throat, and fiddles for a moment in silence before he manages to loosen the rope. Carefully, he slides it off one ankle, and then the other.

The moment Sherlock is free, he all but jumps to his feet. He is a bit unsteady at first, and his arms fly out to either side of his body to regain balance, but he manages to avoid falling flat on his face. John opts to stay sitting, because he's worried his legs might shake and give way beneath him if he tries to stand again.

"Do we have a plan?" John asks after a moment's silence. "For getting out of here."

"I'm working on it," Sherlock replies, making his way over to the stairs that lead up to the door. He walks with his arms stretched out in front of him like a zombie, trying to avoid bumping into anything in the dark. John follows him with his eyes, but once Sherlock begins to ascend the stairs, he disappears into the darkness.

Aware that he is useless, sitting here on the ground, John forces himself to get to his feet. He straightens his shirt and pats his pockets. "They took my phone."

"Of course they took your phone," Sherlock says from the top of the stairs. "What kind of criminals would they be if they hadn't? You can't very well be held prisoner if you have the option for calling for help."

There is the sound of a door rattling, which makes John start, until he realises that Sherlock is the one making the sound, and not someone else on the other side of the door who is trying to get in. After a pause, he hears Sherlock mutter, "I wish I had my lock picking kit." There is a moment of silence, and then John can hear the sound of footsteps as Sherlock descends the stairs. "I need a thin object," he says when he's reached the bottom.

"I don't know what kind of thin objects I'd have," John says, putting his hands in his pockets on the off chance that he has recently pocketed something that could work as a makeshift lock pick.

"Are you wearing a belt?" Sherlock asks suddenly. "One with a traditional buckle."

John is. It might not be the best lock pick they have, but it's better than nothing. John quickly undoes the belt and takes it off, handing it over to Sherlock.

Sherlock takes the belt and brings it close to his face to inspect it in the darkness, running his fingers over the buckle to get an idea of the size and shape. "It might work," he says, and he turns back to the stairs. John follows, not wanting to be left standing in the middle of the empty basement on his own.

Sherlock climbs to the top step, and John follows him up, stopping one step below him. A faint light filters in through the crack under the door, but it's not enough for John to be able to see what Sherlock is doing. He can tell enough from the sounds, however: the soft sound of metal sliding against metal as Sherlock tires to slide the belt buckle into the key hole. John watches in silence, praying to whatever higher power might exist that this will actually work.

It does. It takes several minutes, silence punctuated only by the sound of the buckle jiggling about in the keyhole, and occasionally, Sherlock letting out a soft sound of frustration. Then something clicks, and Sherlock says, "Yes!" and John knows that the lock has clicked open.

They can get out.

They're not out of the woods yet, and they won't be until they're out of this building altogether. They don't know what is waiting for them on the other side of the door. Yet, this is their first step towards escape. It's something.

Sherlock hands the belt back to John, who quickly puts it on.

"Be ready for anything," Sherlock mutters, and John nods his head, before Sherlock opens the door.

The hall that the door leads to is better lit than the basement. There are three windows, but they are boarded up, allowing only a small amount of light to enter. The hall looks just as empty as the basement. Paint is peeling off the walls. There is not a soul in sight.

John wishes he had his gun.

Sherlock leads the way, and John follows closely behind him, both of them keeping their backs to the wall. When they reach the end of the hall, there is another door, but this one is not locked, and John can't help but feel like this is too easy.

Sherlock glances over at John, and then opens the door, which leads into another hallway. Like the last, there are boarded up windows, but this one also has a few doorways – there is the closed door directly at the end of the hall, but a couple of doorways to their right, and one to the left. These doors are open, but there is nothing but darkness inside. In contrast, John can see more light coming from underneath the door at the end of the hall.

Sherlock takes the lead, taking slow, quiet footsteps, and John stays close behind. Sherlock looks in through the first door that they pass, but nothing seems to catch his attention, and he keeps walking towards the door at the end of the hall.

When he reaches the next set of doorways, he looks first through the door to his right. It's the wrong door to look through. The door to his left, it turns out, is not empty. They discover this too late, when a man runs out of that doorway and barrels straight into Sherlock's side.

The force pushes Sherlock back into the doorframe behind him, and he doubles over in pain. John realises when their attacker takes a step back that he was not unarmed. He withdraws a knife from somewhere under Sherlock's coat. The fact that Sherlock stays standing is a good sign, but the way he clutches at his stomach isn't so reassuring.

Their attacker draws the knife back, and John doesn't hesitate, rushing forward and grabbing their attacker by the back of his shirt, simultaneously aiming a kick at the back of his knee. It doesn't cause their attacker's legs to buckle like John had hoped, but it does stop him from trying again to stab Sherlock. He turns on John instead.

A quick glance at Sherlock tells John that it's unlikely that Sherlock will be much help for the moment being, which leaves John to fend for himself. He's unarmed, and even though he's good at hand-to-hand combat, that is a lot more difficult when his opponent _is_ armed. Their attacker takes a swing at John, and John can't fight back – he can only jump out of the way.

John needs to disarm their attacker. The only hope he has of incapacitating him without a weapon is to first make sure that they are both unarmed.

Again, the man thrusts the knife forwards, and John has to stumble backwards to stay out of the way. The hallway is long enough for John to move backwards to escape each swing of the knife, but it is not wide. Neither John, nor Sherlock, can get past the man to get to the door at the end of the hall.

John has to duck another swing from the man, but it's at the same moment that Sherlock manages to regain some of his strength. Sherlock dives as the man is swinging at John, ducking underneath the arm that is brandishing the knife and colliding with the man's midriff. Coupled with the force of gravity, the attack is enough to knock the man off his feet, causing them both to tumble to the floor. Seeing what may be their only chance, John rushes forward and slams his foot down hard on the man's wrist, forcing him to drop the knife. John kicks it out of reach immediately, because he can do that faster than he can bend down to pick it up, and he doesn't want to give their attacker a split second to grab his weapon again.

Their attacker, unfortunately, is prepared for unarmed combat as well. He brings his knees up to his chest so that he can kick Sherlock off of him, before rocking backwards on his back and using the momentum to jump to his feet. The position leaves their attacker facing Sherlock, and John, now, is behind him, closer to the door.

The idea of leaving Sherlock behind doesn't even cross his mind.

Their attacker throws a punch at Sherlock, which Sherlock blocks with his elbow and follows with a punch to the man's solar plexus. It winds him, but it is not enough to knock him off his feet. However, it does cause him to take a half-step backwards, and John grabs his shoulder to force him to turn around, throwing his fist at the man's face.

From there, their attacker's attention shifts to John. John ducks punches as best he can, counters them with his own at every opportunity he has. Their attacker is good, having clearly received training, and he is not easily brought down, but John is good too, and John's instincts are fast. He knows what he is doing. He throws punches, kicks his legs, and finally manages to aim a kick at the man's knees that causes him to stumble backwards, into Sherlock. His weight causes Sherlock to lose his balance, but Sherlock seizes the opportunity, bringing the man down with him. They fall backwards into a heap, and Sherlock wraps an arm around the man's neck the moment they hit the ground, tight. John can see the man struggle for a moment in an attempt to get free, but Sherlock tightens his hold, and then the man falls limp, unconscious.

Sherlock waits a moment before he loosens his hold, arm withdrawing but hand seeking the pulse point at the man's neck. His eyes find John's, and he nods once. "Just unconscious," he says, carefully pushing the limp body off his own. Once he is no longer pinned down by their attacker's body, he wraps one arm around his stomach, and goes to get to his feet. John sees him wince in pain, and so John offers a hand to help.

When Sherlock accepts John's assistance, John can see that Sherlock's hand is stained with red.

"You're bleeding," John says, and Sherlock withdraws his hand, tucking it under his coat again. John realises now that Sherlock is not just holding his stomach – he is putting pressure on a wound. John goes to push the coat out of the way so he can take a look, but Sherlock jerks back and shakes his head.

"It's just a scratch," he says.

"Are you sure?"

"We don't exactly have time to sit around and check," Sherlock says, looking down at his stomach. "Let's get out of here first, and—"

He trails off, his eyes locking on something behind John, widening. John doesn't have the chance to turn around and see what it is that Sherlock has seen. He doesn't need to. It's less than a second later when he hears something click behind him, and he knows the pressure that follows is the press of a barrel of a gun against the back of his skull.

"You're not going anywhere," says a woman's voice.

Sherlock's gaze flickers between John's eyes and the woman currently holding a gun to the back of John's head. He does not move from where he is standing. John finds himself regretting kicking the knife out of the way instead of picking it up.

"He said you were clever, Mr Holmes," the woman says. "He thought that this would be easy for you. He thought you'd have been able to escape before now. I think he would be disappointed in you." The gun pressed more firmly against the back of John's head, and John has no choice but to lean forward a little, chin to his chest. "Perhaps," the woman continues, "this one was slowing you down."

John fixes his eyes on the floor and doesn't move. Sherlock doesn't speak.

The woman behind him continues, "He has told us so much about you. He had us believe that you might be his equal. A simple abduction like this would be child's play for you. It seems he thought wrong."

"I'd love to meet him," says Sherlock, his tone much calmer than John feels. "There is so much I'd like to discuss with him."

The woman behind John laughs. The sound makes him feel sick. "All in good time, Mr Holmes. All in good time." There's a pause, and then she continues, "He told us we were not to kill you. I believe he wishes to have that opportunity himself. However, he gave no directions about the lives of anyone else unfortunate enough to get involved."

John feels his heart leap into his throat.

He has a split second to act before the woman behind him pulls the trigger, and he uses it. He whirls around, in the same movement grabbing the barrel of the gun so he can shove it out of the way. The bullet she fires buries itself deep into the wall. John brings his forearm down hard on the woman's wrist in an attempt to make her drop the gun, but she keeps her grip firm. She brings her knee up into John's groin, and then kicks his legs out from underneath him, and he falls on his back.

She goes to re-aim the gun, but Sherlock doesn't give her a chance. He barrels into her, knocking her arm to stop her from taking aim again. He is significantly taller than her, and he brings his elbow down on her shoulder, hard enough to cause her to crumple to her knees.

She's not unconscious, and she hasn't dropped her gun, but knocking her to the ground has given them a couple of seconds. They use it. "Up, get up," John hears Sherlock say, arms looping beneath John's to haul him to his feet, and then he's shoving John forward, towards the open door through which the woman must have entered. John doesn't need to be told twice.

They burst through the door, into yet another hallway. It's clear now that they are in an abandoned building. The wooden planks of the floor look like they might even give way beneath their feet. They are at an intersection with the choice to go either left or right, and no time to make the decision. They go left.

They race down the hall, around one corner, and then another. John can hear a third set of footsteps, and he knows the woman is after them. She knows where they are; she has made the same turns that they have. They turn another corner, and here, they have no choice but to go up a set of stairs. John knows that moving upwards is only going to get them further from an exit, but the woman is too close behind, and they cannot turn around and go back.

They rush through the door at the top of the steps, John kicking it shut behind him in the hopes to buy them a little more time, and they freeze.

There are no doors to other rooms, no other turns to take. They've found a dead end. The room is large, and empty, and there's nowhere to hide. There are footsteps coming up the stairs; they can't turn back. They're trapped.

Sherlock glances at him, and then looks towards the wall behind John. They're not trapped. They have one option.

"The window," Sherlock says, and John knows that it might not be the best idea, because they're one floor off the ground and could break bones if they land poorly when they fall, but it's the only chance they've got.

The footsteps are coming closer. They don't have time to hesitate.

John rushes for the window. The hinges are old and worn – though the window may have locked once upon a time, it does not anymore. It is easy for John to shove it open. It doesn't give him a lot of space to move through, but it is enough. He puts one foot up on the windowsill for leverage, hauls himself through the window and jumps.

In the split second that he spends in the air, John tries to control the way his body hits the ground. He tries to make sure that he lands first on his feet, and then immediately rolling onto his thigh, hip, and then his back, to spread the impact over a larger surface of his body. It doesn't quite work as well as it does in movies, but he doesn't land on his head, and so concussion is not a concern. It doesn't mean that the fall is not painful, and for a second, John cannot get up, because everything hurts. He knows he does not have long. They only have a moment before the woman gets through the door and takes aim for the window. She will have less of a chance of hitting them from a distance, but the possibility is still there.

A thump beside him tells John that Sherlock has hit the ground too, with a noise that sounds something like a wince. Immediately, however, Sherlock says, "Get up, keep going."

John quickly takes stock of his injuries – he is bruised, cut, and scratched, but nothing seems to be broken – and he pushes himself to his feet.

The building that they have just jumped from is not the only building in the area. There are a number of buildings of various heights, all looking equally run down and abandoned. More importantly, it means that there is somewhere they can get out of sight. John just needs to run around the corner, duck behind a building, and it buys them some time, because they will be shielded from the woman and her gun.

That is, presuming there is no one else around the corner waiting for them – but they don't have time to think about it. Right now, John just needs to run.

There's a sound of sirens in the distance, and John hopes that they are coming towards them. If not, John hopes that at least the sirens will give the woman a reason to not give chase.

He's barely made it two steps before there is a cry from behind him, and John looks over his shoulder. Sherlock managed to get to his feet, but the moment he had taken a step, his leg had buckled. John can see him clutching his ankle. It's sprained, or perhaps even broken. Sherlock is trying to stand again, trying to push past the pain, but his ankle won't hold his weight.

John doesn't even consider leaving the man behind.

He turns and sprints back towards the other man, ducking down to lift one of Sherlock's arms around his own shoulder. He wraps his own arm around Sherlock's waist and says, "Come on", as he hauls the man to his feet. They cannot move as fast now, and Sherlock limps with every step, but John holds some of his weight, and it's enough to support him, keep him standing.

They just have to get out of sight. The sound of sirens is coming closer, and maybe, just maybe, they will be safe. They just have to get out of sight.

A gunshot rings out behind them, and John ducks instinctively, but the bullet hits the ground. The woman had a handgun – she would have to have good aim to hit them, a moving target, over this distance. Yet, perfect shots to happen, sometimes even accidentally. John hears another gunshot ring out, and he tries to move faster. Even the approaching sirens are not reassuring, if they die before help can come. They are out in the open. They are not safe.

There is a flash of movement in the corner of John's eyes, and John can hear the sound of the gun again, and then the ground is rushing up to meet him, and his head is spinning, and everything hurts and everything feels weak.

Then there is nothing at all.

OoO

John wakes to bright lights, to white walls and white sheets and the steady _beep, beep, beep_ of a machine echoing his heart rate back to him.

For several moments, he lies there, blinking up at the ceiling. He feels unwell, and sore, but he doesn't wake with the same kind of black spots in his memory as he did when he woke up in the basement – however long ago that was. He remembers jumping out the window. He remembers going back for Sherlock. He remembers rushing back to help, hearing gunfire, falling, hitting the ground.

He would think that he had been shot, that one of the bullets hailing down from the window had struck him, but he is not in enough pain. He knows what it is like to be shot, in all its gruesome detail. This feels nothing like that. His entire body feels sore and weak, but there is no one particular area that is worse than anywhere else (with the exception, perhaps, of the throbbing of his head).

He blinks several times to focus in the light, and then he turns his head to one side. Here he can see the monitors that he is hooked up to. He can see his heart rate and blood pressure. They're normal. That's a good sign.

He turns his head to the other side. In this direction, there is the chair. Sitting on this chair is Sherlock. This sight might be even more unexpected than the fact that John has woken up in a surprisingly good state in a hospital.

One of Sherlock's legs is curled up underneath him, and the other is stretched out and resting on the end of John's bed. The foot on the bed is wrapped in bandages. Sherlock's head is leaning on his own shoulder, and he looks as though he is asleep, but after a few seconds of John staring at him, trying to process the fact that he is in a hospital and Sherlock is in his room, Sherlock straightens suddenly. He blinks a couple of times and meets John's gaze.

"You're awake," Sherlock states, and then frowns. "How long have you been awake for?"

"Not long," John says. "Just woke up."

Sherlock makes a thoughtful noise, and then reaches up to rub his eyes. "How are you feeling?" he asks after a moment.

"Good, actually. Unexpectedly good. What happened?"

"What do you remember?"

"Being shot at."

"Well, you weren't shot, obviously," Sherlock says, shifting on his chair. "At least, not with a bullet. She had rather terrible aim. However, there was another man with slightly better aim, and a tranquilizer gun."

That, John thinks, makes a lot more sense. "Why aren't we back in the basement, then?" he asks.

"The police turned up about the same time you were hit," Sherlock explains.

"Oh. Thank God for that."

Sherlock snorts. "No need to thank any sort of religious figure. Thank my brother for not being an idiot and monitoring the CCTV systems."

"Then, thank your brother for me."

"Not likely. If I thank him, he'll take it as my acceptance that I owe him something."

John isn't sure what to say to that. He looks over Sherlock's form, and then asks, "Are you okay?"

Sherlock scoffs. "I'm not the one who has been hooked up to various monitors," he says, gesturing to John and the IV in his arm. "I'm fine. It would have taken a higher dosage of tranquilizer to bring me down."

John gestures to Sherlock's foot. "You're not completely unharmed, though."

"No, I'm not," Sherlock says, "but it's just a sprain." He pauses, and then he looks up at John, his expression becoming almost accusatory. "You realise you would have avoided this whole hospital visit had you not gone back for me, yes?"

"And left you behind to die?"

"I wouldn't have died. She had awful aim, I told you."

"Accidental hits happen."

"Regardless. You could have saved yourself."

"Well, I'll keep that in mind."

Sherlock's lips pull up into a smirk. "Do you always play the hero?"

John doesn't think about it like that. He didn't go to Afghanistan to be a hero. He didn't go back for Sherlock to be a hero. What John does, he does because he has the power to save someone. As far as he is concerned, not going back for Sherlock would have been as wrong as pulling the trigger himself. It was never his intention to be heroic. It was just his intention to make sure Sherlock didn't get killed.

He isn't sure how best to put that into words, so he looks down at the sheet over his lap and says nothing.

For a moment, there is silence, and then Sherlock says, "John," and when John looks up at him and meets his gaze, he says, "Thank you."

A small smile pulls over John's lips. "You're welcome, Sherlock."


End file.
